Establish quality goals

Identify the customers

Determine customer needs

Develop product features which respond to the customers' needs

Develop processes that are able to produce the product features

Establish quality controls

Transfer the plans to the operating forces

II. Quality Control - We can view this stage as a first step in the QI of a process.  Let the process run for a while.  At this stage we should study the process.

Keep the waste from getting worse; meet quality goals during operations

Evaluate actual performance

Compare actual performance to quality goals

Act on the difference
    - What happens if there are no differences?
    - How large should the differences be to trigger a QI process?

III. Quality Improvement - This is where the PDCA circle likely fits.

Breaking through to unprecedented levels of performance

Prove the need

Establish the infrastructure

Identify the improvement projects

Establish project teams

Provide the teams with resources, training, and motivation to:

-- Diagnose the causes
-- Stimulate remedies

Establish controls to hold the gains